When Ronan Streby of Flint sat down to write a horror-themed short story, he drew inspiration from his dad, in more ways than one.
More generally, his dad Paul is a librarian, which gave Ronan access to a wealth of stimulating writing, films, and other materials to spark his imagination growing up.
“When you’re raised by a librarian, you have a different childhood than most other people do,” he said. “You get exposed to a lot of things that other kids don’t. I remember, when I was a kid, my favorite movie was some silent German expressionist film from 1920, because that was the sort of thing my dad had access to.”
Streby is one of nine authors whose work is featured in the Buckham Fine Arts Project’s recently published book called, Rain & Rot: An Anthology. Streby contributed a story titled Why Does the Sun Sting? that follows a man who has tinnitus, a condition that causes people who have it to experience a constant ringing in their ears.
“What inspired the story was my dad,” Streby said. “He has tinnitus, and you basically experience the world at half volume. As the story progresses, the main character tries to fix the problem, but he finds that there are many more things that he gets from that than he bargained for. So I would say the takeaway I would like people to get is just to try and think of what life is like from different perspectives and the different things you might see from that unique perspective.”
Eden Aurelia Thorpe, another Flint-based writer, also leaned on some personal experiences when writing her poem, Pretty White Dress, for the anthology.
“The poem kind of takes you on a journey through the imagination,” Thorpe said. “It actually combines some experiences that I’ve had. One in a gross anatomy lab when I held a human brain in my hands, which that experience stuck with me for forever. And also what it felt like as a child to be so close to the process of animals being slaughtered and processed in my home, in my kitchen, and eaten. I really enjoy illuminating the experience of children or animals or beings who tend to be just more vulnerable and overlooked.”
The differences in styles and genres presented in the book are wide, and that’s by design – to elevate and share unique voices in creative ways.
New Opportunities for Writers
Michele Leclaire took over as executive director of the Buckham Fine Arts Project in 2020, and a major focus during her tenure has been creating ways to showcase writing in tandem with the visual arts exhibitions and programs that Buckham has long been known for.
“Buckham has a 42 year history, but the actual bylaws in the mission include (a goal of) enriching cultural life of our community by presenting both visual and non-visual art,” Leclaire said. “During some of those years, it really became more focused on just exhibitions. When I became executive director, we decided to recommit to that (non-visual arts), and with everything that was happening at the time with the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests, we were thinking about what we could do to embrace historically underrepresented and marginalized communities to come into the gallery and feel welcome, so we built the Writer in Residence project.”
The Writer in Residence launched in 2021. Each year since, a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) writer has been selected and paid a stipend to write reactions in the genre of their choosing about exhibitions and artwork in the gallery throughout the year. Those writings are collected and published in a book at the end of each writer’s tenure. In addition to fitting within the organization’s original mission to elevate non-visual arts alongside visual arts, the presence of writers in the gallery throughout the year has enriched the overall environment.
“The writers are coming in and responding to the visual art and it just works so well side-by-side,” Leclaire said. “It has become just as important as the artwork hanging on the wall. We wanted the writers in residence to, after their residency, stay and continue to be a part of our community. They are coming in, bringing other writers, and talking about it in the community. So in some ways, it’s just good promotion. But they also have perspectives and skills that they bring here that support the functioning of our organization. They have really helped us diversify our membership.”
The success of that program led to a new idea: why not try a horror anthology during October when many people are seeking out scary stories, art, and other Halloween-oriented activities?
Rain & Rot
Running a national call for submissions and selecting written work for a horror anthology might sound like it is outside of the wheelhouse of a place best known as an art gallery, but Buckham’s infrastructure and the expertise of its board and community were actually perfect fits for the Rain & Rot project.
“Every year we do a national call for visual arts and we build our shows out of that call, we’ve been doing that forever,” Leclaire said. “Just in the last couple of years, we started having writer collaborators as part of that collective, and they wanted to have their own national juried call.”
The call for submissions from the writers committee, led by Roy Richard, settled on the horror theme and decided on an October launch.
“They (the writers committee) did the research, built a prospectus, and found a juror,” Leclaire said.
That juror, Leslie J. Anderson, is an accomplished and nationally recognized horror writer who lives in Cincinnati. But she also has a Buckham connection – her mom, Christine Waters, is a longtime Buckham board member. Submissions came in from around the country, and a committee of writers narrowed that pool down to 10, with Anderson selecting a winner, I Know You by Hazel Dehn-Shimniok, a Wisconsin-based writer.
“But then we were like, you know what, instead of just printing one, wouldn’t it be great to do all the finalists and have an anthology?,” Leclaire said.
And just like the Writer in Residence program, that change provided a platform for more voices to be engaged with the Buckham Fine Arts Project.
New Published Writers
Thorpe had previously self-published some of her poetry, and Streby has had some previous work published by Qua, the University of Michigan-Flint’s literary magazine, while he was in college. But Rain & Rot provided both of them with a new platform to share their work with a larger audience.
“Not all of my work flows this easily, but this particular piece did because I enjoyed writing it so much,” Thorpe said. “I didn’t feel super attached to the outcome (of being selected or not) because I just had so much fun writing it. So when they did select it, I was really pleasantly surprised.”
Thorpe, who is also a musician and visual artist whose work can be seen on her website or Instagram page, said she’s always been interested in writing, noting that she filled up dozens of journals when she was younger. But this horror anthology also gave her the opportunity to write in a genre she loves.
“I love that the genre itself gives you permission to unabashedly communicate and share darkness,” Thorpe said. “It kind of provides this container in which it’s acceptable. As someone who’s experienced a lot of darkness, I have noticed that outside of those acceptable containers, it can be really hard to convey those experiences in a way that’s evocative without people getting really uncomfortable. But when you have an audience who is actively participating in and engaging with a genre like horror, that’s what they’re there for. They want to experience that really strong emotion, the sublime feeling of like awe and terror at once. And I think it can be really fun as a writer to play with the contrasts of themes like innocence and vulnerability as well as those darker shadow elements of human nature.”
Streby also enjoys horror as an art form and was excited for the local opportunity to test his writing abilities.
“Early on, I just had an interest in telling stories,” he said, noting that he’s also done theatre and written plays. “And I guess I’ve always been drawn to the horror genre because it’s kind of interesting to dive into the depths of what frightens us. When I heard about this contest, I just thought, why not?”
In addition to Thorpe, Streby, and Dehn-Shimniok, other pieces in the publication are written by:
- Tracee J. Glab, Lady Wolverton’s Collection
- Lauren Noelle Johnson, The Stone
- Rachel Kitch, Like Mother Like Daughter
- Meredith McGhan, Fieldwork
- Melissa Neigh, El Grillo and the Haunting of Brenda Chind
- Melissa Neigh, Sacred
- Jenifer Fernandes Veloso, A Maldição de Ambrosina (The Curse of Ambrosina)
The writers all presented the book to the community on October 25, with public readings and a signing at Buckham Gallery.
“I love that it has such a variety,” Leclaire said. “We have quite a few local authors involved, and we have a few from out of state. We have stories and poems and there’s some that have more to do with the supernatural and there’s others that are more maybe something that just doesn’t seem quite right or creepy. It’s really fantastic to celebrate their creativity and work.”
Building Community
Leclaire is excited to be able to offer the book – which can be purchased at Buckham Gallery during business hours or in their online store – but also to continue adding and elevating more voices within the Buckham Fine Arts Project community.
“It’s all been really exciting,” said Leclaire, who is also a visual artist. “I think we (artists) end up so solitary in our studios and stuff and think, ‘Well this is what this is. I’m making it.’ And then it goes out and when a viewer or someone else engages with it, it’s whatever experience they’ve had that day, that month, that life leading up to the moment they’re standing in front of it, that influences their experience and how they interpret a work of art. So when you have a writer coming in and doing it, not only do they have these other interpretations, but they have the words to express it in ways that really can be quite profound.”
Thorpe, who has both a visual arts and a writing background, sees immense value in the mingling of those two worlds at Buckham.
“I think it’s delightful,” she said. “For people who may not be as comfortable or familiar with engaging with visual art, I think bringing in that writing element can then give them a bridge to understanding what does it mean to engage with visual artwork and what does it mean to be able to experience the piece, rather than just looking at it and kind of going on your way. Having a writer be able to explore their own personal experience gives a very tangible example for people who might be curious about entering that aspect of art appreciation.”
She also sees value for the writers, who get more insight into how the artists think or plan specific works.
“It’s really fascinating to get behind the eyes of another artist and see the things that they might notice in a piece that maybe I didn’t pick up,” Thorpe said. “It kind of completes the puzzle piece or gives me a new perspective.”
Buckham Gallery is located at 121 W. Second Street downtown Flint. Admission is free, and hours are Wednesday-Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and by appointment on Saturdays. The gallery is always open during Flint Art Walk on the second Friday of each month from 6-9 p.m., and has hours on select Saturdays – the next one is November 22 from noon to 5 p.m. Other information is available on the website.
Leclaire encourages anyone interested in contemporary art to visit and bring their unique perspectives to Buckham’s growing and inclusive community.
“I feel like we have a good welcoming community and we are also really diverse, not just ethnicity and race, but also age and economic status and programming,” Leclaire said. “It’s really important that we are reaching out and embracing and finding ways to be intentional in our programming. It’s (the Buckham community) inspiring and it makes you want to go and try and not get stuck in your rut of the way you’re looking at things.”
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